Musical understanding' in the 15th century

Early Music

Volumn 30, Issue 1, 2002, Pages 47-66

  Wegman, Rob C ^a  

^a PRINCETON UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 63249091301     PISSN: 03061078     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1093/em/30.1.46     Document Type: Review

References (80)

1. P. Schubert, 'Authentic analysis', Journal of musicology, xii (1994), pp.3-18, at p.3
2. Concerning the realm of early music, see the studies presented in The second sense: studies in hearing and musical judgement from antiquity to the seventeenth century, ed. C. Burnett, M. Fend and P. Gouk (London, 1991)
3. the 25th anniversary issue 'Listening practice' of Early music, xxv (1997)
4. and the special issue 'Music as heard' of Musical quarterly, lxxxii (1998)
5. R. C. Wegman, "'Das musikalische Hören" in the Middle Ages and Renaissance: perspectives from pre-war Germany', Musical quarterly, lxxxii (1998), pp.434-55
6. Quoted after Rudolphus Agricola, Opuscula, ovationes, epistolae (Cologne, 1539; R/Frankfurt am Main, 1975), pp.192-214, at p.200: 'Oro te mitte ad me aliquid ex ijs, quae ad canendum composuisti, sed quod accuratum sit, et cum laude ostendi velis. Habemus et hic cantores, apud quos crebram mentionem tui facio, eorum magister novem et duodecim etiam vocibus canendos modulos componit, sed nihil suorum audivi quod tribus aut quatuor vocibus caneretur, quod magnopere placeret mihi, nec ego tamen animum meum iudicij loco pono, potest enim fieri, ut meliora sint, quam ego possim intelligere.'
7. For the correspondence, see E. Kooiman, 'The letters of Rodolphus Agricola to Jacobus Barbirianus', Rodolphus Agricola Phrisius, 1444-1485: proceedings of the international conference at the University of Groningen, 28-30 October 1985, ed. F. Akkerman and A. J. Vanderjagt (Leiden, 1988), pp.136-46
8. The only available edition is 'Johanns von Soest eigne Lebensbeschreibung', ed. J. C. von Fichard, Frankfurtisches Archiv für ältere deutsche Litteratur, i (1811), pp.84-139
9. The fullest account of Soest's life and literary works is in G. Pietzsch, Quellen und Forschungen zur Geschichte der Musik am kurpfälzischen Hof zu Heidelberg bis 1622 (Mainz, 1963), pp.678-82 (96-100)
10. Pietzsch incorrectly assumes that Soest worked for a brief period at Hardenberg in eastern Holland; he actually worked at Aardenburg, near Bruges. For musical life in 15th-century Aardenburg, see R. M. van Heeringen and H. Hendrikse, 'Nieuw licht op de Maria-verering te Aardenburg in de Middeleeuwen', Westvlaamse archaeologica, vii (1991), pp.97-104
11. and L. Stockman, 'De oprichting van de dekenij Aardenburg (ca.1295) en het Rijke Roomsche Leven in en om de Mariakerk van Aardenburg (966-1625)', Appeltjes van het Meetjesland, xliii (1992)
12. For this and what follows, see H. E. J. M. van der Velden, Rodolphus Agricola (Roelof Huusman): een Nederlandsch humanist der vijftiende eeuw (PhD diss., U. of Leyden, 1911), pp.46-7, 56, 87-8, 92, 139-42, 201-8
13. L. Lockwood, Music in Renaissance Ferrara, 1400-1503 (Oxford, 1984), pp.151-2, 320
14. R. C. Wegman, 'From maker to composer: improvisation and musical authorship in the Low Countries, 1450-1500', Journal of the American Musicological Society, xlix (1996), pp.409-79
15. R. C. Wegman, '"And Josquin laughed ...": Josquin and the composer's anecdote in the sixteenth century', Journal of musicology, xvii (1999), pp.319-57
16. E. Welch, 'Sight, sound and ceremony in the chapel of Galeazzo Maria Sforza', Early music history, xii (1993), pp.151-90, at pp.155-6
17. C. Dahlhaus, Nineteenth-century music, trans. J. Bradford Robinson (Berkeley, 1989), pp.10-11
18. On musical understanding in the 19th century, see also F. Zaminer, 'Über die Herkunft des Ausdrucks "Musik verstehen"', Musik und Verstehen: Aufsätze zur semiotischen Theorie, Ästhetik und Soziologie der musikalischen Rezeption, ed. P. Faltin and H.-P. Reinecke (Cologne, 1973), pp.314-19
19. E. T. A. Hoffmann, 'Beethovens Instrumental-Musik' (1813), after Hoffmann, Fantasie- und Nachtstücke (Munich, 1976), pp.41-9, at pp.43-4
20. For an important study of the tension between sense and reason in medieval music theory, especially in connection with the definition of consonance, see K.-J. Sachs, 'Boethius and the judgement of the ears: a hidden challenge in medieval and Renaissance Music', The second sense, ed. Burnett, Fend and Gouk, pp.169-98
21. Nicholas of Cusa, De ludo globi, ii (1462-3)
22. Trans. after Nicholas of Cusa, De ludo globi: The game of spheres, trans. P. M. Watts (New York, 1986), pp.104-5
23. See also K. Meyer-Baer, 'Nicholas of Cusa on the meaning of music', Journal of aesthetics and art criticism, v (1947), pp.301-8, esp. p.304
24. H. Huschen, 'Nikolaus von Kues und sein Musikdenken', Symbolae historiae musicae: Helhmut Federhofer zum 60. Geburtstag, ed. F. W. Riedel and H. Unverricht (Main, 1971), pp.47-67, at pp.61-2
25. Johannes Tinctoris: Opera theoretica, ed. A. Seay, 2 vols., Corpus Scriptorum de Musica, xxii (American Institute of Musicology, 1975, 1978), ii, pp.172-3
26. For a more accurate edition with complete English translation, see Egidius Carlerius and Johannes Tinctoris: On the dignity & the effects of music, ed. R. Strohm, trans. J. D. Cullington, Institute of Advanced Musical Studies Study Texts, ii (London, 1996). This extremely interesting passage has justly received a great deal of attention on the part of music historians
27. For a perceptive discussion, see W. Seidel, 'Die Macht der Musik und das Tonkunstwerk', Archiv für Musikwissenschaft, xlii (1985), pp.1-17, esp. pp.2-7
28. I have previously discussed the concept of musical sweetness in 'Sense and sensibility in late-medieval music: reflections on aesthetics and "authenticity"', Early music, xxiii (1995), pp.298-312
29. See R. L. Crocker, 'Discant, counterpoint, and harmony', Journal of the American Musicological Society, xv (1962), pp.1-21, at p.9: 'As a further rebuttal, let me point out that the discant treatise does not describe what the listener hears, any more than does the treatise on traditional harmony. In both cases the teacher tells the student how to proceed; he does not analyze the result as it strikes the ear. The typical discant treatise is a collection of practical precepts on how to make music, not a theory of aesthetics.'
30. Johannes Tinctoris: Opera theoretica, 2a: 10
31. See J. Chatillon, 'Dulcedo, dulcedo Dei', Dictionnaire de spiritualité ascétique et mystique, doctrine et histoire, ed. M. Viller et al., 17 vols. to date (Paris, 1937-), iii, pp.1777-95
32. F. Ohly, 'Geistige Süße bei Otfried', Typologia litterarum: Festschrift für Max Wehrli, ed. S. Sonderegger, A. M. Haas and H. Burger (Zurich, 1969), pp.95-124
33. Anon., Dialogus super excellencia et dignitate curie Romane (1438)
34. after R. Scholz, 'Eine humanistische Schilderung der Kurie aus dem Jahre !438', Quellen und Forschungen aus italienischen Archiven und Bibliotheken, xvi (1914), pp.108-53, at pp.124-5
35. See most recently C. Wright, 'Dufay's Nuper rosarum flores, King Solomon's Temple, and the Veneration of the Virgin', Journal of the American Musicological Society, xlvii (1994), pp.395-441
36. and the Communications by C. Turner and C. Wright in the same journal, xlviii (1995), pp.156-8
37. Giannozzo Manetti, Oratio on the consecration of Santa Maria del Fiore, Florence (1436); original text in C. van Eck, 'Giannozzo Manetti on architecture: the Oratio de secularibus et pontificalibus pompis in consecratione basilicae Florentinae of 1436', Renaissance studies, xii (1998), pp.449-75, at pp.474-5
38. Trans, quoted here after Music in the Western world: a history in documents, ed. P. Weiss and R. Taruskin (New York, 1984), pp.81-2
39. I accept Christopher Page's criticism, articulated in his article 'Reading and reminiscence: Tinctoris on the beauty of music', Journal of the American Musicological Society, xlix (1996), pp.1-31, that my discussion of sweetness in 'Sense and sensibility' was too narrowly focused on musical sound
40. Leon Battista Alberti, Profugiorum ab aerumna, Libri III (1441-2)
41. after Alberti, Profugiorum ab erumna libri, ed. G. Ponte (Genoa, 1988), pp.4-5
42. See also C. Smith, 'Della tranquillità deill'animo: architectural allegories of virtue in a dialogue by Leon Battista Alberti', Journal of medieval and Renaissance studies, xix (1989), pp.103-22, esp. p.107
43. See J. Le Goff, The medieval imagination, trans. A. Goldhammer (Chicago, 1988), pp.27-44 ('The marvelous in the medieval West')
44. Pope John XXII (d 1334), Docta sanctorum patrum (1324-5)
45. after H. Hucke, 'Das Dekret "Docta sanctorum patrum" Papst Johannes' XXII.', Musica disciplina, xxxviii (1984), pp.119-31, at pp.121, 123
46. See, for example, L. Lockwood, The Counter-Reformation and the Masses of Vincenzo Ruffo, Studi di Musica Veneta, ii (Vienna, 1970), esp. pp.74-135
47. C. Palisca, 'Bernardino Cirillo's critique of polyphonic music of 1549: its background and resonance', Music in Renaissance cities and courts: studies in honor of Lewis Lockwood, ed. J. A. Owens and A. M. Cummings (Michigan, 1997), pp.281-92
48. Johannes Hübner, Sermo de sanctis apostolis Symone et Juda (c.1400)
49. after F. Feldmann, Musik und Musikpflege im mittelalterlichen Schlesien, Darstellungen und Quellen zur schlesischen Geschichte, lxxiii (Wrocław, 1938), p.125 n.365
50. St Aelred, Speculum charitatis, II.xxiii
51. cf. Patrologia Latina, 195:571
52. For an English translation of the relevant passage, see R. F. Hayburn, Papal legislation on sacred music, 95 A.D. to 1977 A.D. (Collegeville, MN, 1979), pp.18-20. St Aelred's diatribe was still invoked in 17th-century England
53. see P. A. Scholes, The Puritans and music in England and New England: a contribution to the cultural history of two nations (1934; R/Oxford, 1969), pp.215-16
54. after Doctoris ecstatici D. Dionysii Cartusiani: Opera omnia, ed. anon, monks of the Order of Carthusians, 42 vols. (Montreuil, 1896-1913), xxxvii, p.197: 'Praeterea quaeri potest, an discantus seu fractio vocis laudabiliter admittantur in Deitatis obsequio. Quocirca in praefata notabiliter scribitur Summa: Reprehensibilis videtur esse in cantu fractio vocis. Unde in Legenda habetur S. Sebastiani: Putasne illum inter Christicolas numerandum, qui tonsorein diligit, contain colit, sapores quaerit, et vocem frangit? Fractio vocis signum videtur animi fracti. Quemadmodum reprehensibilis est crispatio crinium in hominibus, corrugatio vestium in mulieribus, sic et fractio vocis in cantantibus; et sicut ventus facere solet crispationem in aqua, sic ventits vanitatis hanc crispationem fractionemque vocis facere solet. Haec in Summa praefata. Cui attestatur quod quidam qui ad tempus sic cantare consueverunt, fatentur superbiam et quamdam lasciviam animi in hujuscemodi cantu consistere. Porro, si aliquo modo debeat excusari, non videtur excusabilis aut commendabilis esse nisi pro devotione excitanda ordinetur ac fiat. Nam quidam ex melodiis ad contemplationem et devotionem fortiter excitantur: unde et organa habet Ecclesia. Si vero fiat ad oblectandum praesentibus, etiam mulieribus, non dubium quin reprehensibile exstet, quum et sanctus dixerit Augustinus: Quoties me plus delectat cantus quam sensus seu id quod cantatur, toties me poenaliter peccare fateor, et tunc mallem non audire cantantem. Denique, quamvis discantus provocet specialiter quosdam ad devotionem et contemplationem coelestium, multum tamen revocare videtur ac impedire ab advertentia sensus etiam propriae orationis ejus qui audit et orat. Hinc sanctus ait Bernardus: Parum prodest voce sola cantare sine cordis attetitione. Deus enim cui non absconditur quidquic illicite perpetratur, non quaerit vocis lenitatem, sed cordis puritatem.'
55. Lockwood, Music in Renaissance Ferrara, p.204
56. Girolamo Savonarola, Sermon on the Book of Amos (1496)
57. Quoted after P. Macey, Bonfire songs: Savonarola's musical legacy (Oxford, 1998), pp.93, 97-8
58. Macey, Bonfire songs, p.93
59. It had been rare even for the Church Fathers to condemn music categorically, see T. Gérold, Les pères de l'église et la musique (Paris, 1931)
60. For this and what follows, see K. W. Niemöller, Untersuchungen zu Musikpflege und Musikunterricht an den deutschen Lateinschulen vom ausgehenden Mittelalter bis um 1600, Kölner Beiträge zur Musikforschung, liv (Regensburg, 1969), p.615
61. See O. Söhngen, 'Die Musikanschauungen der Reformatoren und die Überwindung der mittelalterlichen Musiktheologie', in Musa - Mens - Musici: im Gedenken an Walther Vetter, ed. Institut für Musikwissenschaft der Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin (Leipzig, 1969), pp.51-62
62. H. P. Clive, 'The Calvinist attitude to music and its literary aspects and sources', Bibliothèque d'humanisme et renaissance, xix (1957), pp.80-102, 294-319
63. See Page, 'Reading and reminiscence', p.14
64. and, for a similar view, R. Schäfke, Geschichte der Musikästhetik in Umrissen (Tutzing, 2/1964), p.235
65. Aristotle, Politics, VIII.1339b, 24, and 1340b, 31
66. after Aristotelis Politicorum Libri Octo cum vetusta translatione Guilelmi de Moerbeka, ed. F. Susemihl (Leipzig, 1872), pp.358-9; trans. Dr Leofranc Holford-Strevens
67. Paolo Cortese, De cardinalatu libri tres (Castel Cortesiano, 1510)
68. text and trans. after N. Pirrotta, 'Music and cultural tendencies in 15th-century Italy', Journal of the American Musicological Society, xix (1966), pp.127-61, at pp.151, 155
69. 'For it is hard to say why exactly it is that the things which most strongly gratify our senses and excite them most vigorously at their first appearance, are the ones from which we are most speedily estranged by a feeling of disgust and satiety. ... In singing, how much more delightful and charming are trills and flourishes than notes firmly held! and yet the former meet with protest not only from persons of severe taste but, if used too often, even from the general public. This may be observed in the case of the rest of the senses - that perfumes compounded with an extremely sweet and penetrating scent do not give us pleasure for so long as those that are moderately fragrant, and a thing that seems to have the scent of earth is more esteemed than one that suggests saffron ... Thus in all things the greatest pleasures are only narrowly separated from disgust.' Cicero, De oratore, III.XXXV.98-100
70. trans. after Cicero, De oratore, trans. E. W. Sutton and H. Rackham, 2 vols. (London, 1948), pp.78-81
71. For an important study of the notion of satiety in Cicero, see E. Fantham, 'Varietas and satietas; De oratore 3.96-103
72. and the limits ornatus', Rhetorica, vi (1988), pp.275-90
73. Johannes Tinctoris: Opera theoretica, ii, pp.155-6
74. For an important study of this concept, see K.-J. Sachs, 'Pierre de La Rues "Missa de Beata Virgine" in ihrer copia aus varietas und similitudo', Analysen: Beiträge zu einer Problemgeschichte des Komponierens: Festschrift für Hans Heinrich Eggebrecht zum 65. Geburtstag, ed. W. Breig, R. Brinkmann and E. Budde (Wiesbaden, 1984), pp.76-90
75. Pirrotta, 'Music and cultural tendencies', pp.150, 154
76. F. Brancacci, 'Una fonte aristotelica della sezione "De musica" del "De cardinalatu" di Paolo Cortese', Studi musicali, xx (1991), pp.69-84
77. Glarean, Dodecachordon, trans. C. A. Miller, 2 vols. (American Institute of Musicology, 1965), i, p.206
78. '... non piacque mai né fu estimato per bono ...'; quoted after Baldesar Castiglione, The book of the courtier, trans. G. Bull (Harmondsworth, 1967), pp.144-5
79. 'Obrecht, Jacob', New Grove II, xviii, pp.290-307, esp. pp.292, 299-301
80. See, for example, G. L. Finney, 'Music and air: changing definitions of sound', ch.7 of Musical backgrounds for English literature, 1580-1650 (New Brunswick, 1962), pp.139-58, 269-73